Flights grounded after storm hits New York

Airlines have suspended hundreds of flights around New York after gale force winds and snow lashed the city where tens of thousands of people are still without power since superstorm Sandy.

The severe weather, with snow, sleet, rain and winds gusting to 96km/h arrived on Wednesday, just over a week after hurricane-strength Sandy wrought serious damage on the region.

The new gale, a seasonal Nor'easter expected to last 24 hours, was much less powerful than Sandy but was being taken seriously.

A woman walks in the snow during the Nor'easter on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

United Airlines and American temporarily shut down their New York area operations, while New York City and New Jersey called for limited evacuations of low-lying areas.

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"We won't order the kind of large-scale evacuation that we did during Hurricane Sandy but if you experienced significant flooding during Sandy you should consider taking shelter with friends," New York mayor Mike Bloomberg said.

"So far we've not had any reports of flooding today," he added.

Sandy, which began as a deadly hurricane in the Caribbean, slammed 15 eastern US states and prompted a huge tidal surge that killed at least 109 people in the US and Canada and caused tens of billions of dollars worth of damage.

The coastal regions of New York and New Jersey were hardest-hit when Sandy crashed ashore on October 29.

A total of 672,572 homes and businesses were without electricity on Wednesday, the US Department of Energy said, with most in New Jersey and New York. Of those, 22,000 lost power on Wednesday in the Nor'easter.

Mr Bloomberg said 66,000 customers in New York City still remained in the dark.

The main reason for the delay, the mayor said, was that flooding seawater during Sandy had damaged electrical circuits in buildings and that meant a time-consuming clean-up before it was safe to restore power.